Barry Eisler - Why Amazon is Good vs. the Big Six

[kennyc]

And a very interesting conversation documented between Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath
in "Be the Monkey" available for free download here: http://www.barryeisler.com/ebooks/ebooks-buy.php (scroll down a bit)

Be the Monkey - Ebooks and Self-Publishing: A Dialog Between Authors Barry Eisler and Joe Konrath

Eisler turned down a $500,000 contract with the traditional publishers in order to go ebook.

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

If Amazon is so good for the common man, Mr. Eisler, why isn't your The Detachment eBook, the one they published for you, sold, at any price, to public libraries?

Yeah, because if he'd published his new book with his old publisher Penguin or gone for the $500,000 advance offered by St. Martin's Press (MacMillan), the ebook would be available in libraries.... oh wait, no it wouldn't.

I don't like that Amazon's imprints aren't available in libraries, and I hope that as they expand they'll recognize the merit of distributing to public libraries, but it's disingenuous to imply that if Eisler hadn't self-published with Amazon his ebook would be in public libraries.

[Fbone]

Originally Posted by kennyc

Eisler turned down a $500,000 contract with the traditional publishers in order to go ebook.

He didn't earn back his advances from his last few books. Going alone and with Thomas & Mercer he's hoping to do better financially.

[kennyc]

Originally Posted by Fbone

He didn't earn back his advances from his last few books. Going alone and with Thomas & Mercer he's hoping to do better financially.

It's more than just the money, read the conversation in the link above. But yes, he's expecting the money to be better, plus no lock in, and control over his work.

[SteveEisenberg]

Originally Posted by Synamon

I don't like that Amazon's imprints aren't available in libraries, and I hope that as they expand they'll recognize the merit of distributing to public libraries, but it's disingenuous to imply that if Eisler hadn't self-published with Amazon his ebook would be in public libraries.

Maybe I was right, maybe I was wrong. But every one of the first 6 books in Eisler's John Rain series is available from some US public libraries in Kindle format, as can be seen here:

http://search.overdrive.com/SearchRe...showVideo=True

And that book 7, the one published by Amazon, is not.

[Synamon]

Originally Posted by SteveEisenberg

Maybe I was right, maybe I was wrong. But every one of the first 6 books in Eisler's John Rain series is available from some US public libraries in Kindle format, as can be seen here:

http://search.overdrive.com/SearchRe...showVideo=True

And that book 7, the one published by Amazon, is not.

For starters, I don't like that Amazon isn't supplying libraries with the ebooks their imprints publish and I've been actively avoiding buying those ebooks.

The deal Barry Eisler turned down was with St. Martin's Press, an imprint of MacMillan, who do not and have never sold their ebooks to public libraries. If they had published The Detachment it would not be available at your local library.

The older Rain books were published by Penguin, who for a while last year allowed Overdrive to supply their backlist titles to libraries. A few libraries bought the Rain books during that window. Then in February Penguin terminated their contract with Overdrive. Libraries can still lend any books they already purchased, which is why you find old Rain books in the Overdrive listings, but no more Penguin books will be sold to libraries. If they'd published The Detachment, your library would not have it. My public library serves over a million people and has 7258 ebook titles and doesn't have any of the Rain books, btw.

Unless the ebook had been published by Random House or HarperCollins or one of the smaller publishers you weren't going to find it in your public library.

[CommonReader]

A bad argument that gets worse as it proceeds. I'm just not certain if Eisler doesn't have a clue or if he is a disingenuous shill for Amazon.

Now, will Amazon break up the current publishing cartel only to become a monopoly itself? I doubt it. The company's DNA is all about serving customers,

This claim has all the quality of the argument "he is a dictator, but he is a good dictator". This "DNA" can be replaced the very moment investors revolt and want to see a better return on their investment. Even in the digital age an entrenched market position isn't easily imperiled, otherwise we have happened to see it e.g. with Microsoft long ago.

Most of all I dislike the derogatory use of the term "legacy publishers". As much as I may dislike some of their business policies I am well aware of the fact that thanks to these "legacy publishers" we have the most abundant and accessible supply with high quality books we ever had in human history. What has Amazon publishing given us exactly up to now, except for successful mommy porn? If I have to decide on spending money on a book that I don't know yet and one is being published e.g. by Penguin and the other one is being published by Amazon, then I will still go with Penguin every day of the week.